Good morning!
Heather here from Houses Built of Cards.
I am happy wife of a supportive husband, and mother to two wonderful daughters age 8 and 9. I lived my entire life up until about 5 months ago in Northwestern Washington State, and now live in a very small town in Wyoming. While we are still adjusting -especially to the cold – it has been nothing short of an adventure for us all, with the normal ups and downs of missing our family and friends back home. If you aren't familiar with my blog name, then let me explain a little! When I started card making, I quickly found that I was making WAY more cards than I could possibly use. Thanks in part to my daughters and something they both cared deeply for, I decided to direct all the proceeds from the sales of my cards to the building of houses for widows and their children in Burundi, Africa, through a ministry called Sister Connection. Building one house is amazing just $600!!! So far I have completed 2 houses, and am working steadily at a third.
I’m super excited to be Guest Designing at for Market Street Stamps this month. So...for today I pulled out some DCWV Chalkboard papers, some Basic Grey PB&J papers, and some Market Street Minis. I ended up with 3 different cards - and slightly different effects on each one! For this first one, I used a light blue chalkboard paper, and “Wild” – a Market Street Mini. I used some Memento Pigment ink in two different colors to stamp the feathers, and to stamp the sentiment with a slight shadow. The most important thing I learned in doing this is to give it plenty of time to dry! I also heat set it a bit with my embossing gun. Otherwise, the ink smears pretty easily on the chalkboard paper. I finished off by matting it with white paper, adding a few wraps of jute twine tied in a bow on the side, then attached to the background paper with foam adhesive.
For the second card, I went with a more traditional chalkboard effect, only this time used some red chalkboard paper. On this one I used one of my favorite Market Street sentiments - also one of the Market minis called “Blessings in Disguise.” It is hard to tell in the picture, but I stamped with two different shades of Memento pigment ink, wheat and sage. I also used a paper towel held over my finger, dipped in white pigment ink, and smudged around for "chalk dust." Finished off by borrowing one of my kids white colored pencils to add some lines around the sides to frame it. I tucked a doily behind, wrapped and tied some jute twine behind, then mounted it with foam adhesive.
The last card is actually the one that inspired all of this. My husband was wearing a shirt he had gotten at Old Navy recently that was this lovely deep turquoise with a lightbulb on it. Poor guy has gotten used to me I guess, because he wasn't too surprised when I looked at it for a while, then disappeared into my crafty corner to make something inspired by it! Took me until the next day to make it work like I wanted. For this one I used another Market Street Mini called “Bright Side,” and a Christmas set called “Shine On.” I've said it before - but I LOVE how these sets work together!!! This time I used some deep turquoise chalkboard paper, and stamped and heat embossed the light bulb and sentiment to start with. I then slightly offset and re-stamped the image with white pigment ink for a shadow effect. Then I added the light beams using Memento pigment ink in Thatched Straw, so it has a slightly golden effect. I smudged that a little with my finger so it didn't look quite so "perfect," then added some lines around the edges with my white colored pencil. Finished off this one with a couple more doilies tucked behind, then wrapped some jute twine and tied a bow before attaching, again with foam adhesive to my background. Added three little self-adhesive gems to fill in the little spot that looked like it needed something else.
Thanks SOOOO much Market Street Stamps for giving me the opportunity to be Guest Designer today! I had SOOO much fun playing with my stamps! Looking forward to one more chance to share my projects later this month.
And thank you everyone else for stopping by today! Hope you have a wonderful weekend!
